


Hot

by wheel_pen



Series: Agent and Doctor [21]
Category: The Bourne Legacy (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3309041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeremy shows up in Rachel’s apartment with a high fever after being drugged on a mission. Amazingly he manages to heal the damage to his body, but there are severe gaps in his memory, which he at first tries to hide from everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hot

Eliza unlocked the door to her sister’s apartment, her temporary lodgings while her own building was bug-bombed. The interior was freezing and she heard the A/C roaring from across the room. “Rachel!” she called. “Rachel, why is it so cold—“ Then she saw a jacket tossed over the couch that she didn’t recognize. And a shirt on the floor—a man’s shirt. Men’s workboots and socks, strewn carelessly around the room. Men’s pants. And then underwear. She didn’t think her eyebrows could climb any higher. Then she looked into the kitchen and saw the actual man staring at her from behind the open fridge door.

“Who are _you_?” Eliza demanded. He did not appear to be wearing a shirt.

“Jeremy Green.”

Suddenly things made slightly more sense. “Oh. Jeremy from Rachel’s work?”

“Yes,” he told her. “You’re Dr. Ward’s sister.”

“Yes, we’ve talked on the phone,” Eliza agreed, approaching cautiously. “Is Rachel home, or…?”

“No,” he replied. “Did you need something from the fridge?” She walked around behind him and saw that in fact, he wasn’t wearing anything at all, and didn’t seem to mind her knowing it. “I’m really hot,” he added seriously.

“You really are,” Eliza agreed, looking him up and down. Although now things made _less_ sense, unless Rachel had forgotten to mention Jeremy was a nudist who liked to rack up electricity bills.

Which Eliza supposed she might have, she was pretty stingy with information about him.

Eliza thought about calling her sister but wanted to give him the once-over a few more times first. Then the front door rattled and Rachel came home, just in time.

“Eliza!” she called in annoyance. “What did I tell you about the temp—“ She stopped, eyes wide, when she saw Jeremy standing in her kitchen, completely naked.

“Hello, Dr. Ward,” he said, shutting the refrigerator door.

Rachel ignored her sister’s gestures in the background. “Jeremy, what are you doing here?”

He tried to walk towards her but staggered a little and caught himself on a chair. “I’m really hot,” he told her.

She tried to help him up and felt his burning skin. “Oh my G-d, you are,” she realized, maneuvering him towards the bathroom. “Why didn’t you get in the shower?”

“I thought that might be inappropriate,” he replied.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want you to be inappropriate,” Rachel muttered.

Eliza, understanding that the situation was more serious than she’d at first imagined, dashed ahead of them and pulled the shower curtain back. “Step in, over the tub,” Rachel instructed. She turned the shower on the coldest setting. “Thermometer,” she ordered Eliza, who immediately began digging around for one. “Come on, under the water, that’s right,” she encouraged Jeremy. “Here, hold this in your mouth, don’t break it,” she told him of the digital thermometer.

Eliza scooted out of the small bathroom to give them more space as Rachel impatiently waited for the thermometer to stabilize. Jeremy braced his hands on the front wall of the shower, letting the icy water roll down his body. Finally the thermometer beeped and Rachel took it from him, cursing at the number.

“Okay, Jeremy, you were on a mission, and you were drugged,” she surmised. “How did—“

“I completed my mission,” he interrupted desperately, panting with effort. “Five seven two nine.”

Rachel had no idea what that meant. “How did they drug you? Did you swallow something, injection—“

“Injection,” he remembered. “It was yellow.”

Rachel pulled out her phone and dialed the Center’s emergency number. She could hardly hear the ring over the roar of the shower. “Stay under the water,” she ordered Jeremy, stepping out into the hall.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Eliza asked worriedly.

Rachel shook her head quickly, unable to answer right now. “Ward, Rachel,” she told the operator. “Alpha one-one-three. Medical emergency, my apartment. Jeremy Green has been injected with a drug that is raising his body temperature to dangerous levels. Currently temp is one-oh-four-point-two. He described it as a yellow liquid—“

“Dr. Ward!” Jeremy called from the bathroom. “Dr. Ward, there’s snakes in here!”

“Just ignore them, Jeremy, they’re not real!” she shouted back.

“Okay!”

“He’s hallucinating,” she added into the phone. “I need medical transport here with a cold pack, stat.” Then she hung up.

Eliza stopped her before she could return to the bathroom. “Rachel—“

“Maybe you should get out of here for a couple hours,” Rachel suggested briskly. “Go to a coffee shop. There’s going to be a lot of people—“

“I want to help you,” Eliza countered.

Rachel didn’t really have time for this. “Eliza—“

“No,” her sister said stubbornly. “I want to help you and Jeremy.”

“Okay,” Rachel finally agreed. “Get him some cold water to drink. Plastic glass, lots of ice.” Eliza nodded quickly and ran back to the kitchen.

Rachel returned to the bathroom and found Jeremy huddled on the floor of the shower. “The ceiling—“ he began, glancing up at it fearfully.

Rachel knelt down on the floor beside the tub and reached in to smooth back his hair reassuringly. “There’s nothing wrong with the ceiling, Jeremy,” she told him. “Look at me.” His eyes flickered up to hers. “Help is coming. You’re going to be okay. Listen to me,” she commanded when she saw him start to lose focus. “You’re sick. You’re having delusions. Say it back to me.”

“I’m sick,” he repeated miserably. “I’m having delusions.”

“That’s right,” she agreed. “So you need to be _very careful_ before you react to something, okay? Because it might not be real.”

“I’ll be careful, I’ll be careful,” he murmured to himself, squeezing up into an even tighter ball.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Rachel tried to soothe him.

“Here’s some water,” Eliza said, handing her the glass.

“Here, drink this,” Rachel told Jeremy. He reached to take the glass, then pulled his hand back with uncertainty. “It’s okay,” she promised him, so he forced himself to take it. He glanced up over her shoulder and Rachel added, “This is my sister, Eliza. You’ve met her.”

“Did she always have fangs?” Jeremy wanted to know.

Eliza made a noise of protest. “Delusional,” Rachel hissed at her. “Yes, they’re perfectly normal,” she assured Jeremy.

“Oh, okay.”

Someone pounded on her door. “Dr. Ward?” Rachel started to rise but Jeremy grabbed her arm and wouldn’t let go.

“I’ll get it,” Eliza offered immediately.

“Be careful, be careful,” Rachel reminded Jeremy when he started to squeeze too hard.

“I’ll be careful, I’ll be careful…”

Eliza unlocked the front door and found herself facing a large gun. “I’m her sister!” she squeaked, jumping out of the way. “I live here!”

“I need that cold pack in here now!” Rachel shouted from the bathroom.

First came more security personnel, _then_ the medical team, squeezing into the bathroom trying to wrap Jeremy in the chilled fabric. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Rachel assured him. Then she saw someone preparing a syringe. “What’s that? You are _not_ giving him a sedative, the drug interaction could kill him!” she snapped. “He’s going to be careful, aren’t you, Jeremy?”

“I’ll be careful, I’ll be careful,” he promised.

Finally they got him on the gurney and started to maneuver him out the door. Rachel turned to her sister, unsure what to say. “Um, I’ll call you later,” she finally claimed, and turned to go.

“Oh wait!” Eliza called after her. “Your ID!” She thrust the badge into her sister’s hands. Rachel gave her a look of gratitude, then hurried out the door.

****

Quarles had been very impressed with Dr. Ward. But then, he often was. She had helped figure out what drug Jeremy had been given and how to counter it; and she had managed to keep him calm at the hospital without sedatives so no one got hurt during the time he was still awake. So now the toxin was out of his system and he didn’t seem likely to die; but Quarles had another pressing concern.

“Why isn’t he awake?” he asked the two doctors in the room.

“The increased body heat caused a lot of internal damage,” Dr. Pieslowski explained, with a somewhat casual air. “He’s probably just staying unconscious until he’s healed more.”

“ _Brain_ damage?” Rachel emphasized. “ _That’s_ going to heal?” It had been a very long two days for her, without a lot of good news.

“Yeah, I think so,” Pieslowski replied. “Hey, he regrew the tooth _and_ the spleen,” he reminded them. “He should be able to repair some damaged neurons.”

Rachel clearly felt the young neurologist was not taking this seriously enough. “Okay, _assuming_ he can repair the hardware—the software’s gone forever,” she pointed out. “Any memories, skills, whatever was stored in those damaged areas will be lost.”

Quarles turned his chair slightly, unable to completely conceal his frustration. “So even if he wakes up, he may not remember if he completed his mission successfully,” he surmised. That was his bottom line.

“Oh, he did,” Rachel commented, and her boss pinned her with a fierce look.

“ _What?_ ”

“Well, he _said_ he did.”

“When?” Quarles demanded.

“At my apartment,” Rachel shrugged. “He said, ‘I completed my mission. Five seven two nine.’”

Quarles froze in his chair and gave her a hard look. “Dr. Ward, are you _absolutely certain_ those were the numbers he gave you?”

Rachel thought about it for a moment but knew what her answer was. “Yes, five seven two nine.” She’d had no idea what they meant at the time, and in fact _still_ had no idea.

Quarles immediately picked up his phone and dialed someone. “Green five seven two nine,” he relayed. “Implement immediately.” Then he hung up and narrowed his eyes at her. “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”

“Well, you didn’t ask, and I’ve been busy,” Rachel replied bluntly. Quarles wasn’t sure if he should add this to her list of impressive moments or not.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Dr. Pieslowski redirected, drawing the conversation back to an area he was familiar with, “it’s true, whatever information was in the damaged parts of his brain isn’t there anymore. _But_ , it’s probably in the back-up systems, and will eventually be restored.”

Rachel blinked at him. “You have Jeremy’s brain… backed up?” she asked dubiously.

“Not, like, _externally_ ,” he tried to explain, though it was obvious he felt he had to dumb down his description for his audience. “His brain is designed to have redundant areas for backing up information. I mean, hazards of the job—what if he’s out in the field and he hits his head? You don’t want him forgetting key parts of the mission.”

“So… you think he’ll eventually be completely back to normal?” Rachel concluded slowly. It wasn’t that she was opposed to this outcome, it just seemed fantastical.

“Well, you know, normal for _him_ ,” Pieslowski qualified.

****

He awakened but was careful not to show it, first assessing his condition and surroundings. Then he cracked his eyelids just slightly, adding this limited view to the store of his knowledge. Hospital room, standard equipment, no restraints. He was sore but not, he judged, immobile.

He was also not alone. The woman was anomalous. She was asleep in the nearby chair, but only fitfully so, and in an uncomfortable and vulnerable position. She wore jeans, sneakers, a tailored button-down shirt—casual, not a uniform. Her hair was unwashed. She was a poor guard, either for or against him, but he suspected that wasn’t her purpose. Another purpose did not present itself to his mind, though.

For some time he merely sorted through the available information, fine-tuning each sense to maximize its usefulness. The door to the hall was not shut completely and he picked up bits of conversation from people who passed by. He calculated likely locations for security cameras and tested his ability to move only outside their range, so as not to alert any watchers that he was awake. His throat was dry and his mouth tasted sour; he had been given water and nutrients through the IV line in his hand for three to four days, he estimated. He did not recall what had caused him to be unconscious for so long, but focusing on the past was not a priority; judging his present situation, followed by planning for the immediate future, was.

The woman stirred in the chair. He watched her body shift, slip slightly on the slick cushion, then wake herself more as she straightened up. His instinct was to shut his eyes completely and continue feigning sleep; but she mesmerized him, and he didn’t. He wanted to see how her dark, curly hair fell over her shoulder when she turned. She probably wouldn’t be able to tell he was awake anyway.

“Hey, tiger,” she said suddenly. Her voice was slightly scratchy; it sounded tired, but also pleased. For an instant he wasn’t sure she was really talking to him and he maintained the deception of unconsciousness. “Are you awake over there?” she asked, then stood and stretched, the shirt pulling tight across her chest and revealing an inch or so of skin above the waistband of her jeans. “I thought so,” she said with satisfaction, and he realized his eyes had opened wider than he’d intended.

She walked to the edge of the bed and sat down on it, smiling at him. Her expression was genuine. Her hand reached towards him and he tracked it warily with his eyes, but didn’t pull away; he had to be careful, careful not to overreact and hurt someone. She ran the hand through his hair in an affectionate way, the gesture bringing her closer to him. He caught a whiff of her scent and inhaled deeply to sample more; it triggered something inside him, something important, but he didn’t understand what. He knew her, and she was safe.

She smiled a little at him. “You want a drink, tiger?” she asked, and he nodded slowly. A _tiger_ was a large feline predator, typically orange and black striped. He knew other information about them, such as attack strategies, speed and strength, common habitats—but nothing that made sense in context.

She put a straw to his lips and he sucked on it, coughing slightly on the first water but nonetheless continuing to drink greedily. He didn’t know when he’d get more. It didn’t occur to him to be suspicious of what she gave him.

“How do you feel?” she asked. He shrugged slightly, an ambiguous gesture that gave little away. “Well, you’re still healing from the effects of elevated body temperature,” she went on. “You’ll probably make a full recovery, though.”

Obviously this woman had information on what had happened to him, which he lacked. She spoke with familiarity, held herself with ease around him—an odd combination, as he had the sense most people who were familiar with him were very _uneasy_ around him.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” she asked sympathetically, brushing his hair again. He liked the gesture and tipped his head into it, which made her smile. He liked that, too. “Are you in a lot of pain? I don’t really want to give you any medication after what you’ve been through, but if you’re really uncomfortable—“

“It’s okay,” he assured her, clearing his throat after he spoke. Elevated body temperature induced by a chemical then, he surmised. And she was a doctor. He wasn’t sure if this last piece of information constituted an insight, or a memory. Another contradiction—doctors were best avoided, he felt.

“You want some more to drink?” She leaned away to refill the cup, which he didn’t like as much, and his fingertips twitched at her knee. When she brought the cup back he knew she would scoot forward more and he moved his hand out of the way, resting it more fully on her bent leg. She must have noticed but didn’t seem to mind. The gesture was his largest movement to date, though, and brought home how sore he was.

“Yeah, I bet you don’t feel so great, tiger,” she commented, noticing the wince he couldn’t hide. “But you’ll feel better soon.”

He slurped the water and watched her intently. Then he tipped his head slightly; she understood the gesture and reached up to brush his hair again. The correct interpretation of subtle body language suggested a close relationship existed between them.

“The neurologist said you might not remember everything right away,” she went on. “So don’t worry about that, it will probably come back eventually. Apparently you had a little bit of brain damage but that’s healing nicely, so score another point for you.”

He didn’t really know what she was talking about but she seemed to desire a response, so he nodded.

She set the empty cup aside and looked at him with sudden determination. The expression made him uneasy and he squeezed her thigh for reassurance; then suddenly he let go and lifted his hand away from her. Her expression changed to one of concern. “Hey, what’s wrong, buddy?”

“I have to be careful,” he told her. He might have accidentally squeezed too hard and injured her; and he didn’t want that. He didn’t ever want to injure her. The heart monitor’s beeping increased.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she told him, taking his hand back. She rested it on her thigh with one of her own on top of it, and the other stroking his hair again. The heart monitor’s beeping decreased, but now he had new input to consider, to worry about. “I was just going to ask you what the last thing you remembered was,” she added after a moment.

The last thing he remembered was… Well, he didn’t. But no, that wasn’t true, he remembered a lot of things—how to speak English, that he _was_ speaking English, how to recognize a hospital room, the importance of assessing his surroundings. “I remember how to tie my shoes,” he found himself saying, since she wanted an answer. She seemed to find this amusing and smiled at him.

“Do you remember being in my apartment?” she asked him.

An image flashed into his mind. He was in a room—he knew it to be an apartment, _her_ apartment. And, he was naked. So that was interesting. Oh, and he remembered being in her shower while she looked on. That seemed to cement the theory that they were lovers, which would explain her comfortable, affectionate attitude towards him, and his instinctive knowledge that she was safe.

“Yes,” he answered.

She seemed pleased. “What else do you remember?”

He wasn’t sure if he should mention the shower. He knew they were being watched and it occurred to him that maybe being lovers was a secret. But then another image popped into his mind which was too bizarre to keep to himself. “Your sister has fangs,” he said in a confused tone.

The woman laughed, which he especially enjoyed, even though the picture of a second woman he knew to be her sister sporting vampiric fangs was more than a little disturbing. “You were delusional, sweetie,” she told him fondly.

“Elevated body temperature and brain damage,” he repeated to her. The symptoms made sense.

“That’s right,” she agreed. “Do you remember anything before that?”

He remembered many things, bits and pieces of scenes, like a movie reel chopped up and reassembled randomly. He had no sense of _when_ any of the scenes occurred, though. “I don’t know,” he told her.

She smiled sympathetically. She’d been stroking his hair continuously but now pulled back; it wasn’t the most comfortable position for her, but he frowned anyway. “Don’t take this the wrong way, buster,” she told him, “but you need a shower.” He didn’t see what that had to do with anything and tipped his head to the side again, opening his eyes a little wider to encourage her empathy. “Don’t give me that look,” she warned, but he felt her wavering and increased the expression incrementally. “Oh, you are such a pouty trout today!” she told him, and she scooted up more so she could touch his hair without leaning over so much. He was able to get his arm comfortably around her waist, resting on her outer hip. “I probably need a shower, too,” she commented.

“You smell nice,” he told her, then wondered if he shouldn’t have. The physical affection would have already given them away, though, he decided. “I remember being in the shower.”

“Good,” she praised. “If you remember any of your mission, though, don’t tell me. I’ll call someone to debrief you.”

He nodded as if he understood what she meant. So they were lovers, and she was a doctor who could give him medication—that suggested they worked together. He vaguely remembered that doctors weren’t supposed to treat people they were close to, but whatever—there were still many things that didn’t compute. He went on _missions_ , and she knew about this but was not privy to their details. They were classified or covert, then. And it seemed likely he was given this body temperature-raising drug while on his mission—but was it accidental, deliberate and malicious, or deliberate but with accidental effects? Would she even know? It seemed unlikely.

He wondered if he should be talking more, asking more questions. He didn’t know what to ask. Or rather, he needed to ask _everything_ , and didn’t know where to begin, or if he _should_ begin—admitting ignorance of a situation was dangerous. Better to gather further intelligence. Some things had already come back to him, after all. And she didn’t seem to find the quiet odd.

He decided the next step was to become more mobile. “Can I take a shower?” he asked her.

She hesitated. “Well, I don’t know. I don’t know if you should be up yet.” He tried the eye-widening thing again but she caught on this time. “No puppy dog eyes, buster,” she ordered. “I don’t want you passing out in the shower or something.”

“Well, you could join me,” he suggested. His tone and expression were not flirtatious; that was hardly appropriate, given the circumstances. But _if_ they were lovers, it would surely not be unusual for her to at least be in the room while he showered.

Her reaction suggested otherwise, though—she seemed startled, blinked several times, drew back slightly. She did not, however, look around as though suddenly worried about surveillance. He frowned at her, and after a moment she relaxed again, shaking her head as though mildly exasperated with him. It was a curious series of events.

“Textbook Jeremy logic,” she noted.

_Jeremy_ was a male given name of Hebrew origin, a form of Jeremiah meaning “one who is exalted by the Lord.” In 2007 it ranked #122 on the list of popular male baby names. Which also told him the current year was at least 2008. More importantly, was it supposed to be _his_ name? It really held no particular meaning for him. She could’ve meant something else, he supposed.

“I’d really like to take a shower,” he said again, persistent but not pushy. Lying in this hospital bed with tubes in uncomfortable places was too vulnerable; he needed to be on his feet.

“Well, I’ll go get Dr. Pieslowski,” she agreed, provisionally. “Are you okay in here by yourself?”

He nodded. “But don’t be gone long,” he requested of her.

She smiled and left, and he used the time to process his new input. He was guessing military. He knew several ways to handle himself physically and with weapons; he couldn’t remember _learning_ , but his hands twitched instinctively as he thought about how to load a certain kind of rifle or execute a certain flip. A military job fit the idea of missions with classified content as well. Though, the woman didn’t have a military bearing about her; she could be a civilian doctor, he supposed.

The door opened again, admitting the woman and a man in a long white coat, obviously a doctor. Presumably Dr. Pieslowski, but there was no nametag. Did he _know_ Dr. Pieslowski? He tried to seem indifferent on the subject.

“Jeremy, awake at last!” the doctor proclaimed with a chummy smugness. So, Jeremy _was_ his name, then. The woman did not like this doctor much, he saw—she thought he was a pompous a‑s. Well, he trusted her judgment on that. “How do you feel?”

“Okay,” he— _Jeremy_ , try to remember that—answered cautiously.

“He feels okay,” the doctor repeated to the woman triumphantly. “Body temperature that in a normal person would cause permanent brain damage, and four days later, he feels _okay_.”

Wait—so he _wasn’t_ normal? Or did the doctor just mean it as a figure of speech? He— _Jeremy_ —did not feel in a position to judge what was normal and what wasn’t at the moment.

The woman rolled her eyes behind the doctor’s back. “Do you think he could get up?” she asked, her tone all professionalism.

“Well, let’s just see.” The doctor dragged a chair closer and sat down at eye level with Jeremy, peering at him speculatively. Jeremy idly considered the many ways he could break the doctor’s nose in mere seconds. “Do you feel dizzy, nauseous? Headache, sore throat, difficulty breathing?”

“No,” Jeremy replied, without thinking about it. He saw the woman narrow her eyes over the doctor’s shoulder and quickly added, “My throat is scratchy.”

The doctor did not find this important. “I’d like to get a scan of his brain right away,” he mused.

Jeremy understood what this procedure entailed, but the doctor made it sound rather sinister. “Can I take a shower first?” he asked politely. Better to be mobile, in case he needed to escape.

He could see the doctor really wanted to say no—not for any medical reason, just because he wanted to get his brain scan first. The woman walked around to Jeremy’s other side and gave the doctor a pointed look. “Okay, I guess,” he agreed reluctantly. “But a brain scan right after that. Well,” he halted suddenly, reaching into his pocket, “let me check his eyes first, see if there’s any damage—“

The woman tensed, which made Jeremy tense. Then the doctor pulled a penlight from his pocket, and something in Jeremy screamed that it _should not_ be pointed at his eyes, that it would hurt and potentially blind him, leaving him even more vulnerable. In an instant Jeremy snatched the instrument away from the man.

Everyone froze. The doctor was alarmed, afraid even. Jeremy was a little alarmed himself, since he didn’t clearly understand why he’d just done that—or what the consequences would be. He turned his head slowly to check the woman’s reaction, trying to make his expression harmless.

“Maybe _I_ should check his eyes,” she said. She didn’t sound especially surprised by Jeremy’s reaction.

The doctor abandoned his seat without protest. The heart monitor, which had remained remarkably steady, began to increase its beeping as the woman sat down before him. “I have to be careful,” Jeremy repeated, not releasing the penlight when she reached for it.

“What does he mean?” the doctor asked peevishly. He felt safer now that he was out of arm’s reach.

She was tugging the penlight away from Jeremy. “I have to be careful!” he told her desperately.

“Shh, Jeremy, it’s alright,” she assured him, stroking his hair again. “You’ll be careful, you won’t hurt me.”

She’d known what he meant even when he couldn’t articulate it himself, in his rising panic at the idea of hurting her if she shone the light at his eyes. He bit his lower lip, hands clutching tightly at the blankets as he fought his instincts.

“It’s okay, tiger,” she said soothingly. “I know your eyes are sensitive to light. Just keep them open and stare straight ahead, okay?”

He did as she told him. The light stung his eyes, drew tears in them, made black spots dance before them that played havoc with his spatial awareness. But then it was over and she handed him a tissue and rubbed his head. “No damage,” she reported.

The doctor shrugged. “Fine. I’ll send a nurse in to unplug him.” Then he left.

“A-shole,” the woman muttered under her breath. “You okay, tiger?” He nodded, calming down somewhat.

A nurse came to attend to him, and then an orderly to assist him out of bed. He was a large Latino man but with a gentle personality, Jeremy judged, and he seemed to be on good terms with both Jeremy and the woman. Also, Jeremy learned that he could understand and speak Spanish, which was good to know. As he’d feared his muscles were stiff and his whole body ached when he moved, but he stood anyway and limped, with the orderly’s help, into the shower.

“Don’t turn the water up too hot,” the woman warned. “Don’t stay in too long.”

Jeremy assured her he wouldn’t, then when the orderly left him alone in the bathroom he spun the temperature knob to the red end and let the scalding water beat down on him. Ironic, perhaps, that after serious illness due to elevated body temperature, all he wanted now was a blisteringly hot shower, to loosen his tense muscles and burn off some of the fog in his mind. It worked for the former, not so much the latter, except he thought he remembered more about being in the woman’s shower—something about snakes, and the ceiling collapsing. Not exactly helpful, then.

“Jeremy, I _told_ you—“ The bathroom door burst open, the shower curtain was yanked aside, and the woman turned the knob back to the center, more on the cold side really. She was angry, and her anger upset him, frightened him—not because he thought she might hurt him, but because he feared she might leave over it.

“I’m sorry,” Jeremy told her, capturing her hand. He was very careful with it.

She sighed. Genuine remorse was a good way to deflate her anger at him. “You might get dizzy and fall, is all,” she explained, and he nodded.

“Can I have something to eat?” he asked. He was still standing in the shower with water pouring down on him, holding her hand. This didn’t seem to faze her.

“Yeah, sure, something light,” she agreed. “You want an orange?”

She asked with a smile that he couldn’t quite interpret—it was slightly teasing, so did that mean he _hated_ oranges and shouldn’t say yes?

“Maybe some protein would be better,” he countered carefully. She nodded readily, so he assumed he’d made a good choice.

“But _do not_ turn that water back up,” she warned, giving him a hard look. He agreed, and this time he stuck to it.

Hospital scrubs were waiting for him when he emerged from the shower—much the same as the nurses and orderlies wore, he noted, which would make a convenient disguise should he need to escape. He would need shoes, though—the fuzzy socks were a dead giveaway.

He heard voices outside the bathroom, in his room, and let the faucet run like he was brushing his teeth while he listened at the door. It was the woman and a new man; he didn’t recognize the voice. The woman spoke to him with some deference, relaying her observations about Jeremy—they must indeed work together, he decided, and this was some kind of superior to them both. Her opinion about him was valuable, but her comments were in no way a betrayal—if anything, she defended him regarding the penlight incident, chiding the other doctor for being foolish and provoking him.

Jeremy was someone people feared to provoke. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It explained his ingrained warning of being careful, he supposed. But it seemed a rather isolating way to live.

On the other hand, he didn’t exactly feel like a people person.

When the conversation in the room lulled he shut off the water and opened the door. Both people turned to look at him and the woman smiled, genuinely pleased to see him looking better, and guided him without hesitation back to the bed. The new man—no white coat here—smiled also, but not genuinely; he had business to attend to, and that business was Jeremy.

“Well, Jeremy, how do you feel?” he asked, much as the doctor had.

“Okay,” Jeremy repeated. “Better,” he added, glancing at the woman. She seemed to understand his thanks about the shower.

“Good, good.” The man didn’t really care. Or rather, it didn’t interest him personally, as long as Jeremy was at a level to be useful to him. He sat down in the chair facing the bed, while Jeremy sat on the edge of the mattress and the woman leaned against the wall in the corner—she was in Jeremy’s eyeline, to reassure him, but not really part of the conversation.

“So, Jeremy,” the man began, “do you remember anything about your mission?” Jeremy’s eyes flickered over to the woman. “Just answer yes or no,” the man clarified.

“No.”

He was disappointed. Jeremy didn’t feel bad about that. “Not who you were meeting, or what they told you, or how they came to inject you with that drug?”

“No.”

The man nodded, as though this subpar result was what he’d expected. “Do you remember if you completed your mission, at least?” he probed.

“Five seven two nine,” Jeremy blurted suddenly, startling himself.

The man seemed mildly pleased and glanced back at the woman for a moment. “That’s good. I’m glad you told Dr. Ward those numbers earlier, before you were unconscious.”

Well, that was kind of a backhanded compliment, Jeremy decided—thanks for remembering something, but we already knew it. And who was Dr. Ward, anyway?

“Nothing else about the mission?” the man repeated. “Like maybe who got away, who… didn’t?”

Something about his tone made Jeremy understand that by ‘didn’t’ he meant, who did you kill? He blinked a little and drew back, uncomfortable with the idea. Images flashed behind his eyes, violent images—people being shot, stabbed, hit with blunt objects, even having their necks broken… all from a first-person perspective, like _he_ was doing the killing.

Because he was. He was a killer, and that was why people were afraid of him.

But not everyone. Not the woman. Not the orderly. Maybe they’d never _seen_ him kill. They didn’t fully understand what he was capable of.

He’d been silent and introspective too long, clearly thinking of something important. “Jeremy?” the man prompted. “Did you remember something?”

Nothing _he_ would find useful—Jeremy had no idea _who_ he was killing, or _when_. (Not to mention _why_.) “No,” he answered.

The man didn’t quite seem to believe him and leaned forward as if he were going to probe more. Then the woman stepped up. “I think he’s pretty tired,” she suggested pointedly.

“He’s been asleep for four days,” the man countered.

The door opened. “And he was just about to eat some lunch,” the woman added, as a new orderly entered with a tray.

“Fine,” the man sighed, standing. He was obviously unsatisfied. “Now Jeremy, if you remember anything at all, you let me know right away,” he said sternly.

His first thought was to nod docilely in response. But then he changed his mind and his hand shot out to grab the fork from his tray of food. The orderly who’d just set it down gasped, and the man’s expression became controlled alarm—yes, he knew what Jeremy was capable of. But he had a certain kind of danger in him, too, and he didn’t panic. That was important to know.

The woman just looked exasperated with him.

****

It was getting a little ridiculous. Three days he’d been awake, and nothing useful was really coming back—pieces and fragments really, that may or may not stitch together into a coherent story. Dr. Ward was the woman, though, he’d gotten that from other people addressing her. He couldn’t very well _call_ her ‘Dr. Ward,’ though, that was silly. So that was his current quest, to figure out her first name.

She wasn’t _always_ with him; he liked to exercise a lot—she did not allow him to do as much as he wanted, and he’d found out the hard way that she was not just _a_ doctor but _his_ doctor, whose opinions were actually _orders_. He had a lot of sessions with other doctors, brain scans and stress tests and blood draws. There was a psychiatrist whom he disliked intensely, not because she posed a threat but because there was something cold and manipulative about her, but also… bored. She gave him endless personality tests and made him try to find pictures in inkblots, and she would take anything he said and try to twist it around into some dire revelation, so he just kept quiet and wished _she_ were a little more afraid of him. Well, in a sense she was; she always sat closer to the door, with it open, and her panic button firmly in hand. But she felt like those things made her safe, when in reality he knew so many ways to kill her, quickly and silently, before she could even think to push her little button.

“What are you thinking about right now?” she demanded, seeing his expression.

“Tigers.” She snorted derisively.

He liked oranges. They were his favorite food. That was another thing he’d learned. Well, certainly they were good, and very practical what with the vitamins and minerals, water and sugar; but being a _favorite_ probably required an emotional memory that hadn’t quite booted up yet. Dr. Pieslowski, the arrogant neurologist, had already told him about the back-up drive in his brain that was supposed to kick in; Jeremy was pretty sure normal people didn’t have one of those. Then again, his _hadn’t_ kicked in, at least regarding the only thing anyone cared about, which was the mission he’d just finished. No one really asked questions about anything else.

Except Dr. Ward. She didn’t so much ask questions, as make comments and look worried when he didn’t respond properly. So far he’d managed to get by with the puppy dog eyes or claiming to be tired, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t last forever.

He had some time on his hands, so he set up a plan that was probably needlessly elaborate, but it gave him exercise in stealth and strategy, and it was better to be cautious with all the cameras on him. The plan involved knocking over her purse, which she left unattended in his room for only brief moments, and glancing at her driver’s license or ID badge when it tumbled out. That part was fairly simple; but it had to look natural, and he really wasn’t the type to accidentally knock things over, or let them fall if he did. Plus, all the variables—would the ID tumble out? What if it was secured in a pocket or her wallet? If it fell out face down, could he flip it over and glance at it without giving the game away?

So, needlessly elaborate. But, he didn’t have much else to think about.

At any rate, it worked well, except he didn’t count on her tube of lipstick rolling away so fast. He made a note to research the aerodynamic properties of cosmetic containers later. So when Dr. Ward— _Rachel_ —walked back out of the bathroom, he was lying on the floor partway under the bed.

“Jeremy?”

He crawled back out and handed her the lipstick tube, which perplexed her. Minimalism was by far the best strategy, and it came naturally to him—the less he said, the less could be said wrong. She glanced over at her purse on the chair, perhaps saw that it wasn’t exactly how she’d left it, and looked back at him.

“It fell over,” he told her, reducing his needlessly elaborate plan to three words. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she assured him, putting the lipstick away. “Well, it’s almost lunchtime. Are you hungry?”

He’d made the mistake of saying ‘no’ yesterday. “Yes,” he answered this time. “What’s for lunch today, Rachel?” He dropped his new information like a precision missile.

Only the reaction wasn’t exactly what he’d expected. She froze and turned to face him slowly, confusion and suspicion tumbling across her face. Jeremy realized with sudden clarity that he’d made a tactical error—Rachel might be her given name, but what if she went by a nickname, or her middle name?

He tried to gloss it over. “What’s wrong?”

“You called me Rachel,” she pointed out.

“Oh. Did I?” he asked dismissively, as though it weren’t even worthy of recall. A slip of the tongue, was all. He busied himself straightening the blankets on the bed so he could sit there for lunch.

“Yes, you did.” Determination entered her tone, which was not good for him. “You never call me Rachel.”

He went with confusion first—mild curiosity, really, tilting his head to the side and gazing at her as though wondering why she was making such a big deal out of this.

She was not swayed. “No, you never call me Rachel,” she repeated. “What do you always call me?” She put her hands on her hips and stared him down.

He sat down on the bed. “Can we have lunch later? I’m tired.”

She came closer, practically on top of him. “You can’t remember _anything_ , can you?” she accused. Her simmering suspicions had been vindicated, her tone said.

“I remember a lot of things,” he evaded, defensively. That reaction was poor strategically; but the way she looked at him made him feel very exposed.

“What’s your name?” she quizzed.

“Jeremy Green.” He’d gleaned a lot of information from reading the medical records in the room.

“What’s _my_ name?”

“Rachel Ward. _Doctor_.”

She was not dissuaded by these easy victories. “Where did we meet?”

“At work.” An educated guess.

“Where do we work?”

“Here.” A less educated guess, but her reaction showed he was technically right with his vague answer—if not _here_ at the hospital, then surely _here_ on the… military base, or whatever.

“What is the _name_ of the place where we work?” she insisted.

And here he was stuck, because although he’d seen a lot of institutional names as he looked around, he couldn’t be sure which one was the correct answer. He went with his last weapon, the puppy dog eyes. Okay, he couldn’t remember, they said, but it made him _sad_.

“Do. Not. Even. Try that, buster,” she ordered. ‘Buster’ was often the nickname he got when he’d done something wrong, or exasperated her. “Tell me one memory you have of me from before this last mission.”

Something popped into his head at a fortuitous moment. “We went dancing,” he told her. “Your dress was silver.”

That he dredged that up surprised, but did not convince, her. “We did _not_ ‘go dancing,’” she corrected. His memory was pretty clear on that part, though. “You had been poisoned by gay cowboys, and found me at a club, where I was on a date.” His memory did not include any of that, and frankly he wasn’t sure he wanted it to.

She sat down next to him with a sigh and took his hand. “Good G-d, Jeremy! How long have you not been remembering things?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, honestly.

“You don’t remember the first time we met, or my ex-boyfriend Steve the louse who was married, or pointing a gun at me, or—“

The last item bothered him. “Why would I point a gun at you?” It was very important to figure that out, and make sure it never happened again.

She just rested her head on his shoulder. “So you’ve just been sitting here for three days, thinking, ‘What the h—l is going on?’ and faking it,” she surmised. “Well done, by the way.” This was not a compliment.

“I know what’s going on.” She indicated he should prove it. “I have a job in the military. My work involves classified field missions. I kill people,” he added more slowly. “I was _designed_ to kill people.” This bothered him, which seemed like a design flaw. He stared down at their intertwined hands resting on his thigh, thinking about how easily he could snap her fingers just by squeezing. Not that he wanted to—that’s why he was careful. Did normal people think like that?

“Well, you’re mostly right,” she conceded, with dark humor. “We’re not military, we’re CIA.”

“Oh.” There _had_ been a distinct lack of uniforms around—but also no official CIA insignia, either. “So what do I call you?” he finally asked her.

“You call me Dr. Ward,” she replied, with a humorless smile.

He frowned, trying to deduce if she was kidding. “All the time?”

“Always.”

He dropped his head to whisper in her ear. “At home? In bed?”

Her reaction was electric—she actually tried to pull away from him, but he held her hand fast, gently, and wouldn’t let it go. “We’re not—we don’t—“ she sputtered.

He pulled her closer to whisper in her ear again. “Is it a secret?”

“ _No_ ,” she said firmly. “There’s no secret. We’re not—lovers.” Her cheeks blazed pink and she tried to calm herself. “Do you— _remember_ us—being—“

He was not entirely convinced he was getting the truth here, despite her seemingly genuine response. “It seemed obvious.” He glanced pointedly at their clasped hands, which _she_ had initiated. The physical affection, the nicknames, the ease with which she carried herself around him—

“We’re friends,” she told him. He raised his eyebrows slightly at that declaration and she cleared her throat. “Um, you seem to like the, er, hugs and everything, it calms you down, and I’m kind of a huggy person anyway, so… We get along well.”

“Oh.” He thought this over. Well, sometimes the most logical explanation wasn’t the correct one, he supposed. “I was naked in your apartment,” he pointed out anyway.

“Yes!” she agreed, as though this somehow supported her story. “After you’d been given the drug that raised your body temperature! My sister found you standing naked in front of my open refrigerator, trying to cool off.”

“Why didn’t I just get in your shower?” he wanted to know. Strategically, that would have been smarter.

“Well—you said—“ She struggled a little bit. “You said it might be inappropriate, or something.”

That did not exactly help her case. So he was in potentially lethal distress, but didn’t take the optimum amelioration option because… it might make one or both of them uncomfortable? Whatever emotional memory led to _that_ decision was far more important than the one involving oranges, and he was sad it was gone.

She noticed the change in his body language right away and put her arm around him when he rested his head on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay, sweetie,” she told him. “You’ll get your memory back soon. And if you don’t, we’ll just—make new ones.” He snorted. She let him brood for a few moments, then tried to lighten the mood. “So when you first woke up and saw me, you had _no_ idea who I was?” she asked teasingly.

“No.”

“Well good thing you weren’t feeling panicky, huh,” she joked.

“It’s not funny,” he mumbled against her shoulder.

“It’s _kinda_ funny,” she insisted cheekily. “I suppose it’s better to quietly gather information and just go along with things, rather than lash out right away.”

“You smelled nice,” he replied. “I remembered that.”

“Yeah, you’re big on sniffing, tiger,” she responded.

**

Rachel opened her eyes in the hospital room, neck stiff from falling asleep in one of the chairs again. She’d meant to catch up on some paperwork while Jeremy napped, but there was something so peaceful about him asleep that she’d dropped off as well.

“You shouldn’t sleep in that position,” Jeremy chided her from the bed.

She was not surprised he was awake and stood stiffly, her feet tingling a bit. “Yeah, next time I’ll just curl up in bed next to you,” she cracked. “Or would that give you the wrong impression?”

“It was an obvious conclusion to draw.” That was his story and he was sticking to it. “I missed you, Dr. Ward,” he added suddenly, and she sat down on the edge of the bed with a frown.

“When? When I was asleep?”

“When I couldn’t remember you.”

She reached out to brush his hair aside. “Oh. And you can remember me now.” Her tone was understandably skeptical.

“Yes,” he claimed. “We met when you replaced Dr. Lopez. You failed your identity challenge.”

Rachel rolled her eyes; of course he would remember the times she’d embarrassed herself. “Lucky you didn’t shoot me, huh?”

“An enemy agent would’ve been better prepared.”

She gave him a look. “So all it took to restore your entire memory was a one-hour power nap after lunch,” she asked dryly.

He frowned slightly. “I don’t think I remember everything,” he admitted. “Am I supposed to not remember anything before ten years ago?”

“Yeah, I don’t think anything before that is on the hard drive, tiger,” Rachel agreed, a little sadly.

“Oh.”

“You remember your mission?” she questioned. “The Director will want to talk to you.”

Jeremy’s nose wrinkled subtly. “It was nice to meet your sister,” he said, changing the subject, and Rachel laughed.

“Yeah, that was a h—l of an introduction,” she replied. “She keeps asking me how you’re doing.” She gave him a sharp look. “You really remember everything?”

“How would I know?” he asked sensibly. Classic Jeremy logic.


End file.
